WARWICK WOODLANDS. 91 



annouuced. Harry and I, and Tom and Timothy, mount- 

 ed the old green drag; and, with our cheroots lighted — 

 the only lights, by the way, that were visible at all — off 

 we went at a rattling trot, the horses in prime condition, 

 full of fire, biting and snapping at each other, and mak- 

 ing their bits clash and jingle every moment. Up the 

 long hill, and through the shadowy wood, they strained, 

 at full ten miles an hour, without a touch of the whip, 

 or even a word of Harry's well-known voice. 



We reached the brow of the mountain, where there are 

 four cleared fields — whereon I once saw snow lie five feet 

 deep on the tenth day of April — and an old barn; and 

 thence we looked back through the cold gray gloom of an 

 autumnal morning, three hours at least before the rising 

 of the sun, while the stars were waning in the dull sky, 

 and the moon had long since set, toward the Greenwood 

 lake. 



Never was there a stronger contrast, than between that 

 lovely sheet of limpid water, as it lay now — cold, dun, and 

 dismal, like a huge plate of pewter, without one glittering 

 ripple, without one clear reflection, surrounded by the 

 wooded hills which, swathed in a dim mist, hung grim 

 and gloomy over its silent bosom — and its bright sunny 

 aspect on the previous day. 



Adieu ! fair Greenwood Lake ! adieu ! Many and blithe 

 have been the hours which I have spent around, and in, 

 and on you — and it may well be I shall never see you 

 more — whether reflecting the full fresh greenery of sum- 

 mer; or the rich tints of cisatlantic autumn; or sheeted 

 with the treacherous ice; but never, thou sweet lake, never 

 will thy remembrance fade from my bosom, while one 

 drop of life-blood warms it; so art thou intertwined with 

 memories of happy careless days, that never can return — 

 of friends, truer, perhaps, though rude and humble, than 

 all of prouder seeming. Farewell to thee, fair lake! Long 

 may it be before thy rugged hills be stripped of their 

 green garniture, or thy bright waters* marred by the un- 



•Marred it has been long ago. A huge dam has been drawn 

 flcro-^s its outlet, in orclpr to supply a feeder to the Morris Canal — a 

 gigantic piece of unprofitable improvement, made, I believe, merely 

 as a basis on which for brokers, stock-jobbers — et id genus omne of 

 men too utilitarian and ambitious to be content with earning money 

 hoDP«tly — to exercise their prodigious cuteness. 



The eCect of this has been to change the bold shores into pesti- 



